Video 3:39
Death In Custody Inquest

Louisa RebgetzUpdated
Thu 21 Jun 2012, 1:16 PM AEST

A coronial inquiry has been told Northern Territory Police did nothing to help a drunk, injured and distressed man who died in their care. The Northern Territory coroner is holding an inquest into the death in custody of Kwementyaye Briscoe in the Alice Springs Police watch house.

Transcript

LOUISA REBGETZ, PRESENTER: A coronial inquiry has been told Northern Territory Police did nothing to help a drunk, injured and distressed man who died in their care. The Northern Territory Coroner is holding an inquest into the death in custody of Kwementyaye Briscoe in the Alice Springs Police watch house. Our reporter Eric Tlozek has been at the inquiry and I spoke with him a short while ago.

LOUISA REBGETZ: Eric you've been covering the case this week, what happened to Kwementyaye Briscoe and why has his death received so much attention?

ERIC TLOZEK, REPORTER: Well Kwementyaye Briscoe died after being taken into protective custody in January. He died in the Alice Springs police watch-house after being left on a bed face down for three hours and the central question at issue here has been was his treatment at the hands of police proper. And part of the reason that this case has gathered so much attention is because there were lots of questions at the time of his death about how he'd been treated by police, whether he'd been mishandled, whether they could have done anything else to prevent his death. His family's been seeking answers and people all around the country have questioned the fact that we've had yet another Aboriginal death in custody - it's the fourth in the Alice Springs watch house since 1997.

LOUISA REBGETZ: Has the Coroner heard evidence about how he actually died?

ERIC TLOZEK: The Coroner's beginning to hear evidence about the actual cause of his death. It's thought that it's probable that Kwementyaye Briscoe died from positional asphyxia combined with alcohol toxicity so this means he died because he suffocated because of the way he was lying but also the fact that he was very, very drunk - he was at least 0.35 percent at the time of death, meant that it was very difficult for him to breath and if he was lying in such a way that his airway was restricted it means that he probably died from being unable to breath and the alcohol also suppressed his urge to breath so it looks like those are the two causes of death and the question that the Coroner's looking at is should the police have been aware of that, should they have gotten him medical attention and should they have done more to prevent his death in terms of taking care of how they positioned him. We saw before he was taken into the cell we saw security camera vision that was played to the inquest that shows Kwementyaye Briscoe's final hours and you see his deterioration as he gets progressively more and more affected by the alcohol and then we see his treatment at the hands of police and his family who have been in the inquest for the entire week, you know, were shocked and were crying and were very, very emotional as footage of Kwementyaye Briscoe being dragged across the watch house floor and being moved and pushed by police and leaving blood stains as he was dragged and eventually carried into a cell were shown to them. They were very, very upset and that footage itself was, you know I think very disturbing for all involved and that's why I think the Coroner chose to not release the footage until the end of the inquest.

LOUISA REBGETZ: Eric who's yet to give evidence in the inquest?

ERIC TLOZEK: We're yet to hear from the police themselves. The police have been commended for their investigation of this case so far and for some of the actions they've taken to remedy these inadequacies in watch-house procedure but the actual officers involved are yet to give evidence and they'll give evidence next week. All ten involved have been disciplined but no officers have been demoted and I think the Coroner's very interested to hear how and why they acted the way they did on the night Kwementyaye Briscoe died.

LOUISA REBGETZ: Is anything likely to change as a result of Kwementyaye Briscoe's death?

ERIC TLOZEK: Well quite a lot's already changed. We're told that the Alice Springs and Darwin watch houses now have nurses on duty most nights so that any prisoner who comes in, in the same condition as Kwementyaye Briscoe, will be given medical attention and that was the deficiency identified already in this inquest was that Kwementyaye Briscoe was in a position where he was quite obvious he needed medical attention and that the officers should have realised that and perhaps called for an ambulance earlier than they did.